SUSANNA VIRTANEN
Grammaticalized preverbs of aspect and their contribution
to expressing transitivity in Eastern Mansi
Mansi has altogether 30 preverbs that are mainly grammaticalized particles. In my article I will discuss three grammaticalized adverbs in Eastern
Mansi – juw ’[to]home’, jål ’down’ and nok ’up’ – that all have an aspectual meaning. These three preverbs were chosen due to their similar functions as markers of aspect, and to their similar origin as expressions of direction. I will concentrate on juw but I also present data on nok and jål. I
will discuss the process of grammaticalization from adverbs to grammaticalized preverbs and the degree of grammaticalization of these preverbs.
The theoretical background of my study is based mainly on Heine and
Kuteva’s study on grammaticalization (see Heine – Kuteva 2002) as well
as Kiefer and Honti’s observations on prefixes and preverbs in the Uralic
languages (see Kiefer 1997, Kiefer – Honti 2003).
Further on, I will outline the role of preverbs of aspect in expressing
transitivity and show correlations between transitivity and aspect. My approach is based on a semantic definition of transitivity. I will e. g. apply
Kulikov’s study (1999) on the connection between these two phenomena
in Vedic Sanskrit and some other similar cases. I will show, how
(in)transitivity and variation between the two verb inflection categories –
the subjective and the objective conjugation – correlate with aspect as well
as with the distribution of directional adverbs and grammaticalized preverbs in Eastern Mansi.
My research data come from a folklore collection gathered by Artturi
Kannisto in 1901–1906 and published some decades later: Wogulische
Volksdichtung I–VII (1951–1963). My corpus includes 84 clauses including juw, 24 examples on nok and 37 on jål.
Keywords: Mansi, Eastern Mansi, grammaticalization, preverbs,
transitivity.
1. Introduction
Mansi (Vogul) is a Uralic language spoken in Western Siberia. Its eastern dialects have already vanished, but appr. 2 700 speakers of the northern dialects still
exist. The eastern dialects were spoken at the area of the river Konda, and there
were three sub-dialects – Upper Konda, Middle Konda and Lower Konda – carrying the name of the river, and one representing the tributary of Konda called
Yukonda. My data represent the Middle Konda dialect.
Nyelvtudományi Közlemények 109. 109–122.
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As all Uralic languages, Mansi can be characterized by its agglutinativity:
grammatical relations are expressed with suffixes, which sometimes produce very
long word forms. A less typical, i. e. less agglutinative, feature is the use of preverbs. Mansi has altogether 30 preverbs that are mainly grammaticalized particles
such as nok ’up; above’, jål ’down; off’ and juw ’[to] home; to a destination;
into’, all of which are used in the expression of perfective aspect. As will be shown
by the data discussed in the following sections, e. g. the verb ääji ’drink’ receives a perfective aspect with the preverb juw: juw-ääji ’drink up’, and the verb
ääli ’[try to]kill’ is perfectivized with the preverb jål: jål-ääli ’kill to death’.
In the following sections I will discuss these three grammaticalized adverbs –
juw, jål and nok – that all have an aspectual meaning. These preverbs were chosen due to their similar functions as markers of aspect, and to their similar origin
as expressions of direction. I will concentrate on juw, but also present some data
on nok and jål for comparison. Further, I will outline the role of preverbs of aspect in the expression of semantic transitivity. Concerning aspect, I will base my
approach on a binary opposition between continuous and perfective aspect in
Eastern Mansi, where a change in aspect is expressed by a preverb indicating perfectivity. Based on my data, I will show some correlations between transitivity
and aspect, and discuss how the marking of aspect is connected to the variation
in the categories of verb conjugation , as well as information-structural variation.
The theoretical background of my study is based mainly on Heine and Kuteva’s study on grammaticalization (see Heine – Kuteva 2002) as well as Kiefer
and Honti’s observations on prefixes and preverbs in the Uralic languages (see
Kiefer 1997, Kiefer – Honti 2003), Grammaticalization as a historical linguistic
phenomenon has been well-documented in the literature, and also some grammaticalization processes in Mansi have been outlined, but the Mansi preverbs of aspect and time – especially those of Eastern Mansi – have not been discussed
comprehensively.
Another objective of my study is to describe the connection between aspect
and transitivity. Among others, Kulikov (1999) has discussed the connection
between these two phenomena in Vedic Sanskrit and referred to some other
similar cases as well. Kulikov concentrates especially on the relation between
causativity and aspect, and presents two different correlations called s p l i t
e r g a t i v i t y and s p l i t c a u s a t i v i t y : in split ergativity, certain aspectual
categories select ergative instead of absolutive, while in split causativity certain
aspectual categories select transitive-causative instead of intransitive (Kulikov
1999: 32). This cannot be applied to the Uralic languages, but in the following
sections I will demonstrate how the (in)transitivity and variation between the
two verb inflection categories correlate with aspect as well as with the distribution of directional adverbs and grammaticalized preverbs in Eastern Mansi.
Grammaticalized preverbs of aspect in Eastern Mansi
111
It is no longer possible to access new live material of Eastern Mansi, which is
why my research data is from a folklore collection gathered by Artturi Kannisto
in 1901–1906 and published some decades later (Kannisto 1951, 1955, 1956,
1958, 1959, 1963). My corpus includes 84 clauses including juw – either in its
concrete or in its grammaticalized meaning, and 24 examples on nok and 37 on
jål. The data have been gathered from the volumes I, II and III of Kannisto’s collection. The texts were originally written in the Finno-Ugric Transcription system (FUT) and were later converted to a phonetic transcription developed by
Ulla-Maija Forsberg especially to meet the requirements of Eastern Mansi.
The structure of the article will be as follows: In Section 2 I will give an
overview on grammaticalization of preverbs in general, and on transitivity and
aspect in Eastern Mansi. Sections 3 and 4 explore the usage of the three grammaticalized preverbs – juw, jål and nok – and their grammaticalization. The
main results, conclusions and further questions are discussed in Section 5.
2. Theoretical background
2.1. Preverbs and the grammaticalization process
Grammaticalization is a complex process concerning several kinds of morphological or lexical elements. Heine and Kuteva have described grammaticalization as a development from lexical to grammatical forms and as a context dependent semantic process (Heine – Kuteva 2002: 2–3). They list four interrelated
main mechanisms that grammaticalization involves:
1. desemanticization: loss in meaning content
2. extension: use in new context
3. decategorialization: loss is morphosyntactic properties
4. erosion: loss in phonetic substance
These mechanisms are not independent of each other: e. g. desemanticization
precedes decategorialization and erosion. (Heine and Kuteva 2002: 2–3). In
other words, when the meaning of the element undergoing grammaticalization
recedes from the concrete (lexical) meaning, the contexts of its usage change as
well, and the morphosyntactic properties get less value. In this article I will discuss the grammaticalization of these adverbs to preverbs. The preverbs to be discussed have undergone at least desemantication when losing their original
meaning of concrete direction. They have also undergone extension when becoming more complex parts of the base verbs.
According to Kiefer and Honti, „[p]reverbs are preverbal elements which
form a complex verb with the base verb” (Kiefer – Honti 2003: 137). They have
three different though not unrelated functions: 1) perfectivization, 2) aktionsart-
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formation, 3) lexical word formation (Kiefer 1997: 323). In Eastern Mansi, these
elements derive from the lative forms of adverbs that have developed into preverbs via grammaticalization (Kiefer 1997: 325). As Kiefer – Honti have pointed
out, the grammaticalization proceeds from the adverbial meaning first to the aspectual meaning, and finally to the aktionsart meaning (Kiefer – Honti 2003:
317, 318). The genuine prefixes – bearing the aktionsart meaning – represent the
highest stage of grammaticalization, and they can be separated from the main
verb almost by any other element. Most Uralic languages have separable preverbs and only a few have genuine verbal prefixes. According to Kiefer, only the
Ugric languages – Hungarian, Khanty and Mansi – have developed verbal prefixes (Kiefer 1997: 323), but not all preverbs have reached the stage of a prefix
(Kiefer – Honti 2003: 137). Also the three grammaticalized elements discussed
in this article are preverbs, not genuine prefixes. They can be separated from the
base verb by various elements, and they can also occur in a post-verbal position,
but they do not carry the aktionsart meaning. Usually they change the aspectual
meaning of the verb.
Within the Uralic language family, preverbs are also known in Selkup,
Livonian, Estonian, Finnish, Votic, Veps and Karelian (Kiefer – Honti 2003:
137). It is a commonly accepted view that Proto-Uralic did not have any verbal
prefixes, and they have been borrowed from Slavic: preverbs never became
morphologized in Uralic (Kiefer – Honti 2003: 137). In each language they have
developed separately, triggered by areal influence (Kiefer 1997: 323). Also Nurk
states that the grammaticalization of the Uralic preverbs and prefixes might be of
foreign origin (Nurk 1996: 77–78).
2.2. Expressing transitivity in Eastern Mansi
My approach is based on a semantic definition of transitivity. As e.g. Næss
(2007) has proposed, transitivity is a semantic phenomenon, in which one of the
participants is affected by the other. In my approach concerning Eastern Mansi,
the expressions of transitivity include both active and passive constructions (see
e. g. Virtanen 2013). Passive is the inverse category of transitive active constructions and may include all arguments of a transitive active sentence. The
variation between active and passive is motivated by information-structural factors (see Virtanen 2013). The main principle is that there is a correlation between the syntactic and pragmatic functions: the most topical argument always
occupies the place of the subject. In the case of transitive constructions, this
causes variation between the active and the passive: active is used whenever the
agent is the most topical element in the sentence (primary topic), whereas passive appears whenever any other constituent than the agent is the primary topic
and occupies the subject position. Usually the subject of a passive clause is a patient or a recipient.
Grammaticalized preverbs of aspect in Eastern Mansi
113
The syntactic variation within active constructions is primarily a variation
between two verb inflection categories, the subjective and the objective conjugation. Also case marking of NPs is involved. Also the variation between different morphological categories expressing transitivity is motivated by information
structure: in active transitive sentences, topical direct objects are marked, while
focal ones are not. When the direct object in an active sentence is topical, it represents the so-called secondary topic (see Nikolaeva 2011: 26): it is topical, but
less topical than the agent that occupies the place of the subject. Topical direct
objects are obligatorily verb marked, and some of them are also case marked.
(See Virtanen 2013.)
The expressions of perfective aspect in the data discussed in the following
sections are often connected to transitive actions that affect the referent of a direct object of an active transitive clause (patient) or the subject of a passive
clause (patient). As mentioned above, I will show how the marking of transitivity is connected to the marking of aspect, and how these two concepts correlate
with each other.
3. juw: from concrete to aspectual meaning
In this section I will first present data on the original concrete meaning of juw,
and further on its grammaticalized, aspectual meaning and the syntactic use of
these forms. In Section 3.1 I will discuss its concrete directional meaning, in
Section 3.2 its aspectual meaning and in 3.3 the frequency distribution of juw in different contexts. Deverbal nouns used with juw are briefly discussed in Section 3.4.
3.1. ’into’; ’[to]home’
The original concrete meaning of the Eastern Mansi particle juw is ’into’,
’[to]home’. It is a directional locative that originates in the stem ju- ’inner side,
inside’ (WW: 180) and expresses concrete direction. It is also used in the meaning ’[to]home’. Example (1) illustrates the concrete directional meaning ’into’:
someone is entering the house, going concretely into it:
(1) juw i
kooj-øs, juw tuu-s,
pääsyø wöär-øs.
in
so go-PST in
step-PST greeting make-PST
’So he went in, entered, and said hello.’
(WV III: 8)
Also in (2) the preverb refers to a concrete direction ’into’, in a context of
bringing something into a house:
(2) wisy=kom kåjt-iil-øs, jonkp-äg kotøl-äg juw=kåjt-tøsöä. (WV I: 14B)
young=manrun-DER-PSTmoon-DU sun-DU in=run-PST.DU<3sg
’The young man ran and brought (by running) the moon and the sun in.’
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Example (3) indicates the meaning ’[to]home’, which also contains a semantic reference to the inside of a house or a house yard but primarily refers to the
abstraction of ’home’ in general:
(3) juw
joxt-øs.
home
come-PST
’He came home.’
(WV III: 9B)
In (1), (2) and (3), juw has only a spatial or directional function, with no reference to the aspect of the verb. In these situations, a concrete directionality to
home or into something motivates the use of the adverb. However, in (3) we can
already see marks of desemantication or extension: the meaning ’into’ has been
extended to concern the whole household including even then house yard, or to
represent the relational meaning ’home’, the place identified as one’s residence.
It thus refers not only to a direction but also to the reaching of a goal.
In the previous examples, the verbs accompanied by juw are simple one-participant (intransitive) motion verbs. The adverbial juw can also appear with a
two- or three-placed verb, expressing the direction where something is transferred by someone else:
(4) tåt-i
juw.
(WV III: 7B)
bring-3SG home
’He takes [some wood] home.’
In (4) the verb is in the subjective conjugation. The man the sentence refers
to has chopped wood and starts to bring some wood home. Later on, he has
brought all the wood home (5):
(5) jiiw-ty-mø
sok
juw=tåt-øs-te.
(WV III: 7B)
wood-PL-ACC all
home-bring-PST-SG<3SG
’He brought all the wood home.’
The direct object has become topical and the action is perfective. The verb is
in the objective conjugation – marking topicality of the object – and the nominal
object constituent is in the accusative – triggered by the verb conjugation (see e.
g. Virtanen 2013). In this context juw still represents its adverbial function, with
a concrete direction home. However, in this case juw is also connected to a perfective event and – especially considering its more grammaticalized functions –
it already includes features of an aspect marker.
3.2. Aspectual juw
When used as a grammaticalized preverb, juw changes the aspect of the verb
from continuous to perfective and loses its semantic function as an expression of
Grammaticalized preverbs of aspect in Eastern Mansi
115
direction. Verbs accompanied by the grammaticalized juw are discussed in Section 3.3.
In (6) the verb tee- ’eat’ combines with juw and acquires the perfective
meaning ’eat up’:
(6) täw nää-n
jål=wõõltøg-tø,
juw pøl
3SG 2SG-ACC PREF=kill-SG<3SG PREF PARTIC
’He will kill you and eat you up.’
tøg-tø. (WV II: 2)
eat-SG<3SG
In (6) the verb is inflected in the objective conjugation, which refers to the
topicality of the direct object. In my data, 95 % of the active sentences containing grammaticalized juw include objective conjugation. Considering the nature
of the preverb – it expresses perfectivity of a transitive event, which is often
connected to topicality – such a frequency is quite expectable.
In (7) juw is used with the verb køtilaxti ’ask’. The verb is also used without
a preverb in similar contexts, and the use of the preverb seems to be motivated
by the need to emphasize the question:
(7) äk° kom uus k°än=pöält juw=køtilaxt-ii:
one man town out=side
PREF=ask-3SG
’A man outside the gate of the town asks:’
(WV II: 28B)
However, example (7) represents that 5 % of active sentences in my data,
which – despite the preverb – contain the subjective conjugation, which in this
case is due to the nature of the verb. The verb stem køtilaxt- ’ask’ can also be
used with other preverbs like päri ’back’: päri-køtilaxtii ’answer with another
question’.
Example (8) is about taking a mare and letting it free. The event is perfective
and results in a change of state. The preverb refers to aspect, not to a direction:
(8) poojtøl juw=puug-øx˚, söät kõõr-øl töärøt-äx˚? (WV II: 5)
mare
PREF=catch-INF seven stallion- release-INF
INSTR
’Should I take my mare and let it go with seven stallions?’
A feature common to examples (6)–(8) is that the function of juw is not to
express direction but a change of state and its perfectivity. In comparison with
(1), (2) and (3) discussed in Section 3.1, we can see a clear desemanticization
and also decategorialization. The metaphorical direction ’into’ might be connected to the events, but the sentences cannot be semantically understood unless
we consider the grammaticalized meanings.
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3.3. Verbs appearing with juw
According to WW, the following verbs are used with juw in the Easten dialects: karti – throw; jiiw – (be)come; lekemi – push, jostle; märelyti, märemi,
märi – fit, narrow, tighten; måwømtaxti – dive, sink; mini – go; nyalti, nyåliji,
nyålti – swallow; päsøpi – let in, get in; puuløji – fit into mouth; ropi – come
ashore, disembark; teeg – eat, teelti – pay (back); töäjøpi – bite, gobble, burn;
tååsyepi – get stuck; tuuji – enter; tuuli – run away, hide. 1
In my data, the following verbs are used with juw: mini – go; joxti – come;
tuuji – get in, enter; tåti – bring; puugi – grasp; keeti – send; wøg – take; teeg –
eat; äji – drink; lätkøtöäli – talk, give a talk; køtilaxti – ask.
As the lists above show, verbs used with juw are semantically mostly verbs of
motion: they mean ’go’, ’come’, ’embark’, ’enter’, ’push’ or ’hide’. There are also verbs of bodily functions such as ’eat’ and ’swallow’. The first group clearly involves a direction or the concrete meaning ’into’ or ’[to]home’, and also in most
verbs of the second group at least a metaphorical direction ’into’ can be seen.
It is with this second type of verbs (verbs of eating and drinking) where the
function of juw is not a concrete ’into’ but rather an aspectual meaning of expressing perfectivity. These verbs are two- or three-participant verbs that are
usually used to express transitivity. They indicate a continuous aspect when used
without the preverb, and a perfective aspect when used with a preverb. The difference between the continuous and perfective aspects can be seen in simple
pairs like (9) vs. (10) and (11) vs. (12):
(9) ’eat’ – continuous:
jåmøs lyüüly=kar tee-s
ääj-øs.
good
bad=thing
eat-PST
drink-PST
’He ate and drank good and bad.’
(WV I: 40)
(10) ’eat’ – perfective:
öämp juw=tee-s-tø.
dog
PREF=eat-PST-SG<3SG
’The dog ate it [the bird] up.’
(WV I: 12B)
(11) ’drink’ – continuous:
sårøg=öän-øl
k°ås
tåt-wø,
öät
ääj-i.
beer=bowl-INSTR though bring-PASS NEG
drink-3SG
’They bring him a bowl of beer, but he does not drink.’
1
The verb forms have been converted to Kulonen’s transcription.
(WV I: 14B)
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117
(12) ’drink’ – perfective:
wisy
soon=toågøl keeløp kit=wor= kääsy-äät
juw=ääj(WV II: 5)
ootør
øs-tø,
young birch.bark- blood two=rigde brotherPREF=drink[man] goblet
=prince
POSS.SG3SG PST-SG<3SG
’The brother of the prince of two ridges drank a small birch bark goblet of blood.’
In the examples (9)–(12) the verb is in the objective conjugation when accompanied by a preverb but in the subjective conjugation when used without a
preverb. This cannot be generalized to all instances, but it tells a lot about the
role of the preverb in the expression of transitivity. There is a correlation between aspect and the marking of direct objects, i. e. the perfective aspect expressed with a preverb correlates with the topicality of the direct object. Only
topical direct objects are marked (see Virtanen 2013), and those that are marked
may appear in the same clause with the aspect-marker.
The grammaticalized juw can also be used with a verb inflected in the passive:
(13) tänkør
juw=nyöäløj-øw-øs.
mouse
PREF=swallow-PASS-PST
’The mouse was swallowed up.’
(WV III: 10B)
In passive expressions the function of the preverb is the same as in the active:
it expresses perfectivity. The passive does not overtly code the direct object, but
the use of the passive itself tells about high topicality: in this case the passive is
used, because the patient (the mouse) is the most topical argument of the sentence (primary topic) and needs to be promoted to subject (see Kulonen 1989,
Virtanen 2013).
3.4. Deverbal nouns
Deverbal nouns can also be used with a preverb. In my data, 13 % of all sentences with juw involve a deverbal noun.
(14) juw=tee-n-äänøl
pøl
pref=eat-DER-POSS.SG3PL PARTIC
’They do not have anything to eat.’
öätyi
(WV I: 28)
NEG
Nominalized forms of tee- ’eat’ can appear with or without the preverb juw.
In both cases the meaning of the deverbal noun is ’something to eat’, but the
form with an aspectual preverb is used especially in contexts with hunger and a
need to eat something. The perfective aspect is used to emphasize the concrete
need of people or animals.
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3.5. The overall picture of juw
I have distinguished three different meanings of juw: firstly the most concrete
meaning ’into’, secondly, the meaning ’[to]home’, and, thirdly, the aspectual
meaning of perfectivity. These three functions represent also three different
stages of grammaticalization proceeding from concrete to abstract. The different
meanings of juw in my data have the following frequencies (see table 2):
Preverb
’into’
’[to]home’
aspectual
Frequency (%)
44 %
16 %
40 %
Table 2
In table 2 it can be seen that the concrete meaning is still vital, but the 40 %
frequency of the aspectual meaning tells about strong grammaticalization. The
frequency of 16 % of the meaning ’home’ still represents a concrete directional
function, but already includes marks of loss in the semantic value and a more
extensive range of uses. The aspectual meaning shows up mostly with verbs like
’eat’ or ’drink’, which also contain the meaning ’into’, if the participant performing the eating is conceptualized as a container. The aspectual function of
juw is still often – though not always – connected to its concrete meaning ’into’.
Originally the perfective aspect has been expressed by emphasizing direction
’into’, and later on it has been adapted to perfective verb forms with other kinds
of meanings as well.
4. nok and jål
The adverbs nok ’up’ and jål ’down’ refer to opposite vertical directions.
Both of them also have an aspectual meaning in the same way as juw: both are
used with certain verb forms to express perfective aspect. These two preverbs
will be discussed only shortly to give a ground for comparison with juw. [n]ok
and its concrete and aspectual functions are discussed in Section 4.1, and jål and
its functions in Section 4.2.
4.1. nok
The original concrete meaning of nok is ’up’. It is used in expressions of
simple concrete situations, where the action is directed upwards:
(15) õõx-nø
nok=suum-øs
hill-LAT
up=gallop-PST
’He galloped up the hill.’
(WV II: 2)
Grammaticalized preverbs of aspect in Eastern Mansi
119
In (15) nok is used as a directional locative expressing the direction ’up’, and
indicates no aspectual meaning. In (16) the same element is used together with a
passive form of the verb pølømt ’burn’ and carries an aspectual meaning. As
mentioned in Section 3.3, an aspectual particle may also be used with passive
forms, expressing aspect in the same way as in the active.
(16) woorpõõwøl
Vorpaul
syäärääny-äät koj-i,
toåwtv-øl
nok=pølømt- (WV II: 5)
øw-øs.
ember.stack- lie-3SG fire-INSTR PREF=burnPOSS.SG3SG
PASS-PST
’The Vorpaul village lies as a stack of ash, it was destroyed by the fire.’
Also the aspectual use of nok involves a direction in (16): the smoke goes up
when the village is burning. However, the primary meaning expressed by nok is
not this direction but the perfective aspect: the whole village was destroyed by
fire. Thus [n]ok expresses perfective aspect of the event of destroying.
4.2. jål
The original concrete meaning of jål is ’down; downwards; beneath’, and like
juw and nok it is also used with motion verbs to express a direction as in (17):
(17) nöälmøn wity-øt tunsy-i luup,
ow-nø jål tåt-il-øwø (WV II: 5)
beneath water- stand- tree.trunk stream down bringLOC
3SG
-LAT
DER-PASS
’Lower in the water there is a tree trunk, the stream presses it downwards.
In (17) the motion in the stream of the river is continuous, and jål appears as
an adverb and expresses only direction downwards. In example (18) it is used
with the verb wõõl ’[try to] kill’, bringing perfective aspect to the meaning:
(18) täw nää-n jål=wõõl-tøg-tø, juw pøl
tøg-tø.
(WV II: 2)
3SG 2SG-ACC PREF=kill-DER- PREF PARTIC eat-SG<3SG
SG<3SG
’He will kill you and eat you up.’
In (18) the aspectual jål has also at least a symbolic meaning ’down’ – we
can imagine the body of the killed person falling down – but its main function is
to express perfectivity, not direction. In the same way as with juw and nok discussed above, the grammaticalization of jål is first connected to the expression
of perfective aspect by emphasizing a direction. In the same sentence (18) there
is also the perfective verb stem juw-teeg- already discussed in Section 3.3.
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My data on nok and jål also show correlation between aspect and transitivity:
the adverbial meaning appears with the active subjective conjugation expressing
an intransitive action, while the aspectual meaning is accompanied by the objective conjugation or passive, which both index topicality of the patient.
5. Conclusions
In this article I have outlined the use and origin of three aspectual preverbs in
Eastern Mansi. My data show that the grammaticalized meanings of the verbal
preverbs have – or at least have had – a semantic connection to their original adverbial meanings ’into’, ’up’ or ’down’ – even though they can be clearly differentiated from the area of usage of these original concrete meanings. In most of
the cases, the grammaticalized form appears with a verb expressing movement
into the same direction the original adverbial meaning expresses. In more abstract cases the preverbs may occur with verbs indicating a directional meaning.
The aspectual juw appears mainly when something is acquired by a human
participant, or when the aspectual action includes the direction ’into’, and the
action is actually perfective. The aspectual nok is used when the event with a
perfective aspect includes a concrete or a metaphoric meaning ’up’. The aspectual jål appears when the event combines perfective aspect with a concrete or
metaphoric symbolic meaning ’down’. In some contexts a further extension may
arise where the preverb is connected to a verb without such a directional meaning.
Further, there is quite a clear correlation between transitivity and aspect: the
original spatial or directional meanings appear with intransitive verbs, or aspectually continuous transitive verb forms, while the grammatical meanings are accompanied by perfective transitive constructions. The use of juw with different
verb forms and aspects can be summed up as follows (table 3):
Aspect
intransitive
continuous
transitive
perfective
transitive
Form
subjective conjugation + adverb
subjective conjugation + adverb
objective conjugation + adverb
passive + adverb
objective conjugation + gram
passive + gram
Table 3
Example
juw minøs ’He went home.’
tåti juw
’He takes [some wood] home.’
tåtøstø juw ’He brought it home’
tåtwøs juw ’It was brought home.’
juw-teestø ’He ate it up.’
juw-nyöäløjøwøs
’It was swallowed up.’
Grammaticalized preverbs of aspect in Eastern Mansi
121
These three preverbs represent only 10 % of all preverbs in Eastern Mansi, so
these results cannot be generalized to all preverbs. However, there are obvious
similarities in the grammaticalization of these three preverbs. Directional locatives have developed into preverbs expressing aspect, and in this way they also
participate in the expression of transitivity. The same phenomenon has been observed also in Estonian (see Veismann – Tragel 2008). Grammaticalized preverbs tend to appear with two- or three-place verbs inflected in the objective
conjugation. They can also appear with verbs inflected in the passive or in the
active subjective conjugation, as well as with deverbal nouns. Common to all
these forms is that they express a transitive action, and that the function of the
preverb is to express perfectivity.
Abbreviations:
ACC
DER
DU
INF
INSTR
LAT
LOC
NEG
– accusative
– derivational suffix
– dual
– infinitive
– instrumental
– lative
– locative
– negation particle
PARTIC
PASS
PL
POSS
PREF
PST
SG
– particle
– passive
– plural
– possessive suffix
– preverb
– past tense
– Singular
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WV = Kannisto, Artturi (1951–1963).
WW = Munkácsi, Bernát – Kálmán, Béla (1986).